Monday, April 11, 2005

When Will I be Loved?

Never, at least if you're a movie and that's your title. I recently watched this movie that Roger Ebert apparently enjoyed, but I find this IMDB critique by someone named Hannah to be more accurate:

When Will I be Loved is a film that attempts at many things but fails miserably. The title in itself is misleading in that it gives the impression that the main character, Vera, is searching for love that's owed her. In fact, Vera appears to have everything one could possibly wish for in life, including two caring doting parents. Why she chooses to engage in self-destructive and vindicative behavior is a complete mystery. The only reasonable conclusion one could make is that she is bored with with the perfectness of the life into which she is born and wishes to disturb that somehow by becoming attached to a hustler. This movie is pretentious and ridiculous beyond reason. The characters are written in such a way that they are not even recognizable as human, but rather just qualities. Non of the characters are accessible on any level, which makes the viewer completely apathetic to the outcome of their dilemmas. I, for one, was angry that I had wasted my time with a film that was not pleasing on ANY level. In fact, as the previous reviewer mentioned, the music that we are inundated with is distracting and serves no particular purpose. A bitter revolting taste still remains in my mouth from having watched this one hour ago.

Well, maybe it's not THAT bad. It works as a brief character study, but the ending just reeks of "What should we do now to shock everyone?!" It ultimately feels like a movie that had something to say, but lost its funding before it could say it, so what the hell, lets just end it with a bit of finality. There are moments where you begin to see that snowball rolling down the hill, getting bigger and bigger, but before it ever made it down to bowl you over, it hit a tree and exploded.

Unless you're really bored, I don't recommend it.

-L

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